Abstract
The issue of trafficking women and children for work in outside countries has been a problem for decades. Numerous cases have been reported of women missing only to be found in other countries working as sex workers. With the current development in information technology, methods of recruiting, shipping and procuring people for trafficking has greatly changed making it hard to curb the problem. Government of various countries has been found to cooperate with perpetrators of human trafficking. Based on the review of a movie by the name TRADE, numerous legal and ethical issues have been brought forward with respect to the activity. There are cases of people being kidnapped and their organ being sold for transplant in other countries. This leads to doubts on nurses’ conduct.
Introduction
The issue of trafficking women and children for work in outside countries has been a problem for decades. Numerous cases have been reported of children and girls missing from their countries with some being found in other countries working as sex workers. There are numerous businesses that thrive from returns collected from sex work. This underlines the reasons why human trafficking as a problem is not viewed to come to an end in the near future. With the current development in information technology, methods of recruiting, shipping and procuring people for trafficking has greatly changed making it hard to curb the activity. This paper is endeavored at looking at some of the ethical and legal issues associated with human trafficking according a review of TRADE a movie focusing on human trafficking in Mexico.
Legal and ethical issues on human trafficking
Based on the movie many ethical issues portray themselves with respect to the activity of human trafficking. Every person is entitled to his or her freedom. However, this is not the case when it comes to human trafficking. Women and children especially girls are denied this right by being kidnapped and transferred to other countries to work as sex workers. This denies young girls their right to education as well as living with their families. The tendency of women to heavily depend on men for provision of money and other Assistance makes them vulnerable to this problem. As desperate women travel in search for jobs to meet their needs, they fall victims of these traffickers who hunt for women all over the world (Bales, 199, pp. 23-27). The traffickers are also seen to disrespect human rights where women and young girls are forced to walk over long distances when being shipped to their destinations. This is in order for them to cross national boarders without being noticed by law enforcers. Human trafficking is seen to thrive due to high rate of corruption in the trade. Perpetrators of the trade are willing to part with huge amount of money for law enforcers to let them go on with their business. This has made it hard to stop the trade as those entrusted with ensuring that human trafficking is eliminated are bribed to allow it to continue. This is reflected in the movie TRADE. Despite there being law enforcers in the boarder between Mexico and United States, who inspects every consignment before it enters or leaves the country, human trafficking still, go on along the boarder. In spite of some women complaining to have been kidnapped no action is taken by the government. The Mexican government is also corrupt. Despite it sampling merchandise that goes through its country, it still allows trafficked persons to go through the country (Ethics Centre, 2009, para. 4).
Ignorance among the traffickers and the government is another moral issue that is shown in human trafficking. People involved in the act do not care about the impacts their activities have on the victims of the trafficking. They do not care about the effects of subjecting them to walking over long distances. Kidnapping also has adverse effects on family members as well as relatives of the persons kidnapped. However, this is not an issue to the traffickers. They seem to only concentrate ensuring that they enrich themselves at the expense of their victims. In-stead of the government treating the trafficked victims in a human manner, they are treated as alien where they are held in prison waiting to be sent back to Mexico. The way, in which these victims are shipped from their place of origin to various destinations where they are aimed to work from, undermines human dignity (Kim, 2008, para. 2).
Legal issues are also reflected in human trafficking. Since the abolishment of slave trade, human trafficking was declared illegal across the globe (The Angel Coalition, 2003, para. 4). There are international and national laws burning the activity of human trafficking. However, this does not deter perpetrators of this activity from going on with their business. This is seen to succeed due to law enforcing agents getting involved in illegal deals. The government of Mexico is seen to contribute to the continued human trafficking through the country. This is because despite the merchandise being inspected as they pass through the country; human traffickers still get their way through the country to America. The work assigned to these victims once they reach their destination is also illegal (Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, 2000, para. 7). Allowing it to be conducted encourages the business of human trafficking.
Conclusion
Human trafficking leads to a lot of suffering among the victims as well as among family members and relatives of the victims. The activity deprives the victims a lot of their rights. They are not allowed to make their own decisions with everything being dictated by their traffickers. Of late, human trafficking has been seen to take various forms with people being kidnapped and their organs being sold for transplanting. Controlling the problems requires a concerted effort from both the public and law enforcers all over the world. This is because law enforcers have been blamed for allowing the activity to go no in some countries. Some questions that arise from the activity are: do nurses require having the consent of the person donating hi or her organs before conducting the transplant? Again, does it require nurses to know the source of the organ before it is implanted on a patient? Finally what does the code of ethics governing nurses states on matters to do with transplantation of human organs?
Reference List
Bales, K. (1999). Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Ethics Centre. (2009).Human Trafficking. Web.
Kim. (2008). Movie Reviews: Trade & Human Trafficking. Web.
The Angel Coalition. (2003). Trafficking from Russia & the CIS. Web.
Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. (2000). Trafficking in Persons Report. Web.